


'Cause love is harder than it used to be

by finnjonesbaratheon



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Betrayal, Hurt, M/M, booker did them wrong y’all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25853665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnjonesbaratheon/pseuds/finnjonesbaratheon
Summary: After Booker’s betrayal, the group convenes and discusses their next steps.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 2
Kudos: 73





	'Cause love is harder than it used to be

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost (with a bit of editing) of a fic I posted about a week ago. I personally didn’t like how I wrote it but I’ve sat on it and edited out some of the awkward parts.

Booker’s betrayal had hurt Joe the most.

Everyone in their group—sans Nile, of course, because she was so new—was well-aware of the fact that Joe and Booker were closer friends with each other than either Nicky or Andy. They watched football games together and bickered about who was the better player (Booker, out of sheer spite _and_ French pride, refused to pick any player who wasn’t French or, at the very least, spoke French), they both laughed at Nicky’s steadfast determination to find baklava that Andy couldn’t identify (he’d yet to actually accomplish such a task), and Joe found Booker to be a male companion (outside of Nicky) he could fall back on through their shared experiences.

He trusted Booker during missions as much as he trusted Nicky. There’d never been a mission or a moment they’d all had where Joe had thought he’d had any reason to doubt Booker’s loyalties, or believed that Booker somehow wouldn’t have any of their backs. This was a conviction Joe stood so strongly by that he was willing to bet large sums of money—sums that would make even Nicky say “Joe, il mio amore, that is a bit too much, no?”—on it. He’d have been insulted on Booker’s behalf if anyone had ever implied that Booker’s placement on their team was anything less than one hundred percent solid.

There was a reason why he left the betting to Nicky.

The Merrick situation had shown Joe that he didn’t really know Booker nearly as well as he thought he did. Their friendship, their partnership, their entire _group dynamic_ was, apparently, a fucking enigma to him because he didn’t know that his closest friend had been plotting to sell them all out this entire time right under all of their noses. To their faces. Booker lied to their faces. He lied to _Joe’s_ face. He walked around pretending to be all for the group and for their missions, only to decide at the last minute that he was actually sick of them and he was willing to expose all of them if it meant he could get what he wanted. He’d be okay with all of them becoming the modern day versions of Quynh if it meant that _he_ could opt out of being an immortal entirely. As if whatever happened to the rest of them was just a pathetic afterthought. The space in-between the moment before a person realizes they’ve misspoken. A mere “whoopsie daisy”.

A selfish piece of shit, indeed.

In the pub sat all four of them—Joe, Nicky, Nile, and Andy—deciding Booker’s future with the team. Booker stood outside, stoic, watching them all decide his fate. Joe would occasionally turn to glare daggers at Booker through the clear glass window. In all honesty, Joe wanted to go outside and punch the shit out of Booker until he’d had his full, but Nicky had told him that more violence wouldn’t solve any of their problems. (Joe had silently disagreed with his beloved. He knew that punching Booker at least thirty times in quick succession would definitely alleviate _some_ of his anger, but he was careful not to voice this openly lest he risk Nicky giving him the Frown Of Disapproval.) So, he had to sit there, burning with rage and disappointment and betrayal and _hurt_ , and discuss a future for Booker that didn’t involve him getting punched in the nose repeatedly.

“I still think we should make him apologize,” suggested Nile for the third time during their group’s discussion. Nile, who was so pure and so sweet and so _new_. All she wanted was for them to be a family again. She didn’t like the idea of punishing Booker, believing that the guilt of his betrayal was punishment enough for him. But she didn’t understand the full weight of what Booker’s betrayal meant. How could she? She’d only known Booker, and all of them, for a matter of days. She’d only been an immortal for less than a week. She didn’t have centuries’ worth of knowledge about the fear of being caught the way Andy, Nicky, and Joe did. She hadn’t witnessed Quynh being dragged away and forced to die a million deaths the way Andy had. For her, Booker’s betrayal was simply a mistake. But for the rest of them, Booker’s betrayal meant they’d all end up captured and dissected for the rest of their immortal lives. It seemed like Andy’s immortal life had reached the end of its rope, but Joe and Nicky and Nile still had more years to go, and it was cruel of Booker to put them all in a situation like that.

Even Nicky, as level-headed and empathetic as he usually was, knew that Booker had to face some type of punishment. Though, he and Joe disagreed greatly on what that punishment should’ve been. Joe wanted Booker banished for a thousand years, forced to write “I am a traitor” over and over again in French, Arabic, Italian, and English every single day during all his years away. Nicky, on the other hand, believed that Booker should be left alone somewhere for fifty years with limited contact from any of them (with only the occasional postcard sent now and then for them all to know how he was doing).

“Nicky, habibi, how is that meant to teach him accountability?” Joe asked upon hearing Nicky’s suggestion.

“It will give him time to think about what he’s done. I don’t think he should be alone for all those years, Joe. He’s a lonely man. We can’t just cut him off forever,” Nicky answered calmly.

“Not _forever_ , Nicky. Just for a thousand years,” Joe responded, adding, “You know I love your kindness, Nicky. It’s one of my _many_ favorite things about you, but I won’t be able to sleep well knowing we gave him such a light sentence for the shit he pulled. We were tased, Nicky. They kept stabbing us with needles and killing us over and over again.”

“I know, Joe. I was there. And it terrified me to see you hooked up to those machines like that. When Merrick stabbed you with that knife, I wanted to kill him with my bare hands. I was _so scared_ that you wouldn’t wake up again. I don’t know what I’d have done with myself if I’d lost you.”

And then it hit Nicky: besides the feelings of rage at Booker’s betrayal of their friendship, there were feelings of rage at Booker’s willingness to put Joe’s life in danger. Booker knew what Merrick was capable of, and yet still decided that it was worth it when he made the deal with Copley. Nicky wanted to understand where Booker was coming from—he knew that if he was forced to live this life without his Joe, his own loneliness would probably far outweigh Booker’s—but he could _never_ understand not caring about Joe’s safety. And because of this, he said:

“One hundred years with no contact with any of us. But at the end of it we have to meet up with him again. Joe, _per favore_. I’m sure he will have learned his lesson by then.”

Joe thought about it for a moment. This was probably as much as he was going to get Nicky on board with a punishment for Booker, and he could see how much doing this much broke Nicky’s heart.

“All right,” he agreed.

Andy hadn’t said very much since her opening statement of “So, what should we do with him?” beyond some sounds of acknowledgement of whatever Joe or Nicky said. Whatever they all decided for Booker, she knew she wouldn't live long enough to see it come to fruition, so she didn’t think it was necessary for her to join the discussion. Though, upon Joe’s agreement to Nicky’s proposal, she turned to Nile expectantly.

“Is that all right by you, too?” She asked the newest member of their group.

Nile looked torn. She’d had her heart set on making Booker apologize and promise not to do it again, but after listening to Nicky and Joe she had to admit that what Booker had done deserved something stronger than a mere apology and a scout’s honor not to repeat his actions. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how scared Joe and Nicky were during that entire ordeal. And to know that the man who’d put them in such a position was a man they called a friend had to have added to their hurt. She felt bad for Booker, but Joe and Nicky were her friends too and she had to take their feelings into account.

“Y-yeah,” she stammered, then cleared her throat and stated more clearly, “Yeah. I’m with Joe and Nicky on this one. A hundred years.”

“All right,” Andy said, her voice heavy with the finality of their decision. “I’ll go out there and let him know.” She stood to get up, but before she walked out of the room and announced Booker’s fate to him she looked at all of them and said: “For what it’s worth, I agree with your decision. What Booker did… that’s not something that can be taken lightly.” Then, she walked off.


End file.
